Fewer students are majoring in accounting and taking the CPA exam, which is contributing to the accountant shortage. To get more perspective on why students might not find accounting careers as attractive—and what employers can do to attract young accounting and finance talent—we spoke with Natalie Griffith, director of generations insights, and Jack Mackinnon, senior director of product and content, of consumer research firm Collage Group.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Do you have any insight into why fewer students might be going into accounting?

Griffith: [Gen Z are] pursuing more flexible degrees, like do-your-own major type programs, because of ambiguity with where the future economy is going. They’re seeing it as “OK, I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into doing just this one thing. I want to be well rounded and make sure I’m prepared for a variety of different careers.”

Mackinnon: Accounting, on the surface, feels like it would be a very straightforward, very safe, very stable career. But in reality, [young people] are doing the homework and knowing, “Actually, if I commit to one thing at this point, I could be in trouble if I can’t find a job and if the market is not favorable to me.”

For more on attracting Gen Z finance talent, click here.—CV

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The first major supply-chain concern of 2024 is here—and it has been since last year.

Since November 2023, Houthi rebel groups have carried out around two dozen attacks against commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, jeopardizing a critical trade route, destabilizing the flow of goods, and upping shipping times.

The attacks, which the group claims are an attempt to target vessels tied to Israel, show little sign of stopping.

In light of the attacks many major shipping groups, including industry leader Maersk, which controls around one-sixth of international container shipping, have rerouted vessels. Now, many shipping companies are relying on the Cape of Good Hope, which takes significantly longer, adding a possible three weeks to shipping times, per Reuters.

All of this has led to a supply-chain crisis both dire in its immediate urgency and ominous for the challenges it could later pose for shipping prices should attacks continue.

Keep reading for more on the impact on shipping prices.—NP

In a December 2023 report, cybersecurity company Sophos pointed to a cybercrime job offer of sorts, titled “Analysis of financial and legal vulnerabilities for negotiations”—an atypical label for a ransomware-specific post, perhaps, given that the cybercrime is often considered a technical affair involving intrusion and encryption.

In the event of negotiation breakdown, applicants would be expected to perform “assessment of developments, research, marketing strategy, prospects, etc. for further sale to competitors.”

If the forum request is to be believed, ransomware actors are testing out a less technical way of adding pressure to an already overwhelmed victim: bringing in finance and legal pros.

“There’s a lot of pressure to make very fast decisions about how to recover the business, and I think this is just them trying to tighten the screws a little bit,” Chester Wisniewski, director and global field CTO at Sophos, told IT Brew.

Click here to continue reading IT Brew’s story on navigating ransomware.—BH

Today's top finance reads.

Stat: Hundreds. We wish this was a more concrete stat, but Google doesn’t seem to be keen on sharing specifics in its latest layoff round. The tech giant said it’s cutting “a few hundred” roles on its ad sales team, after cutting 1,000 jobs last week. (The Verge)

Quote: “I think [a global regulatory approach to AI is] very desirable, because I think we’re now at this point where these are global challenges that require global norms and global standards. Otherwise, it’s going to be very tough to contain, tough to enforce, and tough to quite frankly move the needle even on some of the core research that is needed.”—Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the importance of international AI cooperation as part of the World Economic Forum. (CNBC)

Read: The business decisions behind the problems driving recent Boeing headlines. (The Atlantic)

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